Chameleon
by Yutaan
Summary: They see what they expect to see - they just don't realize how much she changes to keep things that way. Anthy-centric, UxA if you squint.


A/N - 'Allo, Yutaan here. Another Anthy-centered drabble... I do those a lot nowadays, don't I? ^^; I can't help it, though, the girl is just one big seething goldmine of inspiration!!!! But maybe I should try writing about a different character for once.... Maybe Mikage...?

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Chameleon

For Saionji, she is wiry-limbed - seemingly fragile, submissive, with wrists so thin a breath could snap them and with a face of high, easily-slapped cheekbones, easy - but with enough strength in her body to stand for eternity if he wished.

For Miki, she has a milky scent - something subtle beneath the inescapable perfume of roses, something that smells of childhood evenings, when a warm mugful would guide anyone into sleep, something that he does not quite remember as a smell just like the soft place where Kozue's neck joins with her jawline.

For Juri, she is womanly - her lips plump themselves like rose petals, her hips curve soft and inviting around the meeting of her thighs, burgundy suddenly fires in the sunlight from the depths of her purple hair - and she even remembers to add the freckle Shiori sports on her left ankle, just to complete the portrait.

For Touga, she is Utena - an athletic build, with hints of salt-tang dusting her fingertips and secreted at her temples, just behind her hair if anyone cared to push it back - not that Touga would kiss there anyway, even on Utena.

For Akio, she does not hold back - she rips whatever she wants, smiles however widely she wishes - she watches through her black fog of eyelashes as Akio winces as the ghosts of the swords seep out through her pores to prickle his belly and pelvis.

For Utena, she consciously does not think - her body shrinking down as if in apology, flattening her breasts and narrowing her hips until she is nothing but a schoolgirl, a non-threat who would never dream of ripping open her own torso and drawing a sword to stab the pink-haired bitch right in the _back_, just show her what the world is really like just smash her down begging those blue eyes for mercy the whole time, _oh -_

It is a long time before she wonders what she really looks like - a long time, a lot of swords and suitcases and worn-out sneakers and stinking bus station bathrooms and, finally, tears. When the thought comes, she does not know how to make herself look just for herself. She is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at her reflection, when Utena comes home from her lecture at the university.

"Gahhhh, I hate Fridays.... The professor's voice always stays at exactly the same pitch, and I can never stay awake.... Anthy?" Utena peers around the bathroom door; her hair washes to white in the harsh flourescent light. "Anthy?...You okay?"

She doesn't answer at first. "I'm... fine," she finally allows. "It's just -"

Utena waits for a moment, quiet.

"I'm not sure... what I...." She trails off, then abruptly turns to Utena and tugs at her sweatshirt; Utena lets her do it. Brown fingers pull the sweatshirt up high and then trace over Utena's ribs. The ridges are smooth, betray no cracks or scars or gaping hungry holes inside that envelope of pale skin - but the flesh is crisscrossed with white lines of badly-healed tissue. She gazes at the shining patterns that adorn every inch of Utena's body.

"...I'm not scarred," she says finally, in a quiet voice, and drops her hungry gaze.

"Ohhh, that's what this is about?" Utena doesn't bother to retrieve her sweatshirt. Instead, she folds her arms around the dusky-brown shoulders, resting her chin on top of the ruler-straight part in the purple hair. "Lemme tell you, I hardly remember I have them. You're the only other person who ever even notices them; nobody at class mentions - hm...." Utena frowns, then kisses the tangles of purple over one temple, calls back over her shoulder as she waks down the hall, "I smell dinner. Yakitori?"

She follows Utena into the kitchen - at least, she begins to. Before that, however, she takes one last glance at the mirror - and for a moment, she brings scars to the surface of her skin, not pretty pale things like Utena's, but something raw and festering, something ugly. But they fade as soon as her gaze shifts.

For "Anthy", she is not sure who to be.

She sighs and goes to serve the yakitori.

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Um.... Reviews = yay?


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